b) I don’t like music; I love it!

b) It’s my opinion, and I also like 25 or 624 better than this

c) one bracket is better for footnotes

(b) I’m right.

(c) In common with everyone else on this planet, I don’t give a fuck what you consider. Deal with it.

Thanks for reminding me Marcello !Toronto had a big live R & B community in the sixties & seventies that may account for the popularity of big bands in these parts.
Might also explain why Chicago were so popular here. David Clayton Thomas also from Toronto.

For the record some of the local , blue eyed soul bands were Jon , Lee & The Checkmates, The Rougues ( i think Lighthouse Drummer , Skip Prokop , was original drummer ), Tom & Ian and The Soulset, Mandala, George Oliver . They mostly covered the US Soul Hits but had a big following and have actually become identified with the ” Toronto SOund “. Most played out of L’Cog D’or on YOnge Street and the same place was home to Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks , who later became The Band. Special place, special time.

Interesting that TB got behind “If You Leave Me Now”. I remember him playing Chicago’s “I’m A Man” as a “Revived 45″. When the record finished, he commented, almost apologetically: “That was from 1970, when the heavier stuff tended to get into the charts.” (Pause, then more brightly and briskly) “Aren’t you glad it’s not still 1970?!”

I love this record. A solid 9 from me.

I’m thinking of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Electric Flag , Tower of Power, Cold Blood , Sons of Champlin and , in their own way Sly & The Family Stone.

All these bands built around big sound and brassy , ballsy punchy , funky horn sections.

I saw Chicago live ( more than once ) and certainly early on , when they were the Chicago Transit Authourity and Terry Kath was still there they were fabulous. Probably their best piece of music is the suite ” Make Me Smile ” on their second LP, I think.

Even with the thirties/forties nostalgia boom, isn’t Robin Sarstedt’s “My Resistance Is Low” the weirdest of top three hits?

It could be that saying “six of four” is a bit of UK English that was taken to the US and is surviving in places - as a Californian I’ve never heard it, let alone said it.

I’m starting to think everything besides Brotherhood of Man is the real punk…

it has a kind of four seasons feel to it, maybe because of the high, nasal voice - but this has a more blissed out feel that conjures up pictures of men in blouses and medallions with blow dried hair
while googling some of the acts who followed that trend i discovered a new musical genre - yacht rock: details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht_rock

re: no. 26 and the prog/aor pre-punk thing i seem to remember that among those writers who promoted those genres in the music press there was a lot of stuff which promoted ‘the studio’ as a scene of high-tech wizardry to which lesser mortals could never aspire until they had ‘paid their dues’ - the week after mick farren wrote his ‘titanic sails at dawn’ piece in the nme, max bell wrote a reply in which he sung the praises of steely dan and little feat amongst others

punk didn’t sweep all that away for me at least - i was happy to listen to the sex pistols as well as steely dan and pink floyd

Oh no, my dear! You truly overestimate my capabilities.